WEBVTT

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All right.

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This will be the last poem
from the first section.

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And it's called "My People."

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"I have longed to say
my people, not because I

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was born of two peoples, of
blue-tiled walls and strip

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malls, not because I don't know
where I belong or with whom,

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or worse, who I am, as
onlookers have, in their pity,

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proclaimed.

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The lovers too, after they've
exited my body, which they felt

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emboldened to name.

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I have wanted to say my people--

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and to be clear, to
all people, to any

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you imagined by the
mind of an embodied

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you that was also
first imagined.

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I am interested in
repair without shame.

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I am interested in
restitution with anger.

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I am interested
in anger as love,

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in having anyone who
hears the phrase see

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it vanish into the
edge of what they know,

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to know how far I
mean it to reach.

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My people, as redundancy, as
symbol of the first truth,

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immutable, almost
banal in its assertion.

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If you are on this Earth,
you are of this Earth."

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Thanks for the snaps, Tyler.

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I like snaps.

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Feel free y'all.

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Thanks.

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I mean, don't feel
forced, but feel free.

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[LAUGHTER]